Elder Oaks - How To Define Yourself

I love it when I say something on my blog, and it's confirmed by something I later learn from the words of the Apostles. I was flipping through the online version of the latest New Era, and I saw an article by Elder Dallin H. Oaks titled How To Define Yourself, and it confirms what President Deiter F. Uchtdorf said in Four Titles and what I said in Identity Crisis - Solved.

Elder Oaks said: The only single quality that should characterize us is that we are a son or daughter of God. That fact transcends all other characteristics, including race, occupation, physical characteristics, honors, or even religious affiliation.

In this article, Elder Oaks also says that if we define ourselves by characteristics that are trivial or temporary, we will be de-emphasizing that which is most important about us. Some people define themselves by their status, their abilities, and/or their physical characteristics, but that's not the most important thing about them, and those things aren't guaranteed to last. The one thing that is most important and that is guaranteed to last forever is that you are a child of God.

Nothing can change that. Not illness or injury, not poverty or defamation, not even sin. God will always be your Father and He will always love you. Period. No matter what.

But while that truth will never change, knowing that truth and living by it can change everything. It can change the way we see ourselves, for starters, and it can also change our actions, our relationships with others, our personalities, and our entire lives. Just as I hope to change myself for the better by seeing myself as a Paladin, we can all change ourselves for the better by defining ourselves, first and foremost, as children of God.